Armored (15 page)

The racking cries persisted as she slumped in misery beside her husband, holding her mouth to stifle the wails.

She killed her love, but he had caused papa, Alberti and many others to die because he loved money and gambling more than he loved famiglia.

C
hapter Twenty

Giuseppe and Nicole sandwiched Carlo in his brother’s huge comfy bed. The donna had an arm protectively around his son who wore Vincent’s pajamas. She had gushed over the luxurious satin linen and the classy décor.

“A couple who make love’s room,” she had said before dozing.

If Carlo were not present he would have given a physical reply.

Her
fingers touched Giuseppe’s waist as she slumbered, causing his skin to warm from the contact. He heard the phone and reached for it. At the sound of his sorella’s woeful plea, he slid carefully from the warmth of what home should be to stand and hastily don his clothes as he listened.

“I am on my way sorella. I am coming.”

An eye opened as he shoved the cell in his pocket and buckled his belt. Nicole whispered, “Another emergency?”

“Sí,” he answered quietly
seeking to avoid waking Carlo.

Tony and Tiffany slept in the spare bedroom. Alfonzo would return to find his castle full. But he could not secure his donna and disregard he
r sister or fiancé.

Her eyes were on his chest. “Thank you for letting my sister and her fiancé stay, too.”

“Eh, famiglia takes care of each other.”

“Who looks after you Giuseppe?”

“I look after myself.” A weary sigh. “I have a loving famiglia.” He slipped his foot into a shoe.

“
I’ve been asked to perform in Japan in a few days, but when this emergency ends, you and Carlo are invited to Brussels for my next performance.”

“
Che suona bello.”

“Is that a yes?”

He nodded. “Yes, that sounds nice is what I have said.”

“Bene.” She smiled.

“I may not want you to leave donna. I am beginning to wonder if you were sent to me.” He omitted by Shanda who sensed he needed a good woman to care for him and Carlo.

“Only time will tell. Stay safe, you have a son, remember.”

“Sí, donna, I am aware of this.” He smirked, leaned over the boy and his lips fused tightly in a reluctant farewell. He watched her eyes flutter, and sadly smiled. He then retracted to kiss his son’s rosy cheek and departed.

Giuseppe arrived
at Amelda’s grand estate. The place was a mansion. The property boasted landscaped fields with marble birdbaths and gardens which aptly represented Amelda and Matteo’s flamboyance.

A suitable wedding gift from her brother.

Of course she would love it and so did Matteo.

To Giuseppe, ostentatious was a definition of the couple.

Giuseppe instructed his Capo to remain with the automobile.  He had no idea why Amelda summoned, but he must go alone. He walked the glistening path made of colorful rocks to the door, used his passkey, eh, his sorella fussed that he had too much access, yet she did not request the card.

He loved his sister, although she was a meddlesome irritant.

Giuseppe spotted a shadow near the kitchen, undoubtedly, a hungry watchman foraging for a late night snack. His feet continued across the marble floors, up the stairs to the couple’s bedroom and knuckles tapped lightly on the heavy door.

Amelda cried permission for him to enter and when he did the vision before a Don’s eyes was tragedy.
A lover’s haven was death’s chamber. The emotion the sight elicited from the surveyor may have come from the gaze of a student studying a piece of art. The scene reminded him of the 1856 painting by Louis Gallait, ‘Jeanne la Folle,’ except more macabre.

Amelda was not kneeling alongside a divan mourning her
beloved; instead she cradled Matteo’s head upon her lap sobbing above his lifeless body. She stroked the silky hair, stylishly cut; the dapper man in death could be a male model for corpses.

Amelda looked at her brother from the
rose colored bed.

She cried pitifully
, a broken spirit. Only once when their papa died had he seen such vulnerability. She had sequestered herself in her room for days to grieve. His mama worried because Amelda was papa’s princess. Their father gave her everything. Amelda was his softness and she wielded her royal hand with indiscriminate influence over him and papa bowed to her every whim.

To Giuseppe, he did the same, although Amelda never received a whack, he had.

Giuseppe’s heart broke because Amelda loved Matteo equally or perhaps more than their papa.

“Fratello…I have killed him…I have killed my son’s papa,” she cried in utter
despair as she beseeched Giuseppe to take care with Matteo and give him honor in death because in life he had gone astray.

A brother dropped
at the foot of the soiled bed. He did not ask what brought her to this lethal crossing because these roads he traversed on numerous occasions. Whatever, she needed, her fratello would give to his sorella…his heart…his famiglia.

“Amelda, where are the guns?”

She pointed to the large armoire and he stood. But first he fetched a cloth from the bathroom to open the latch of the antique wardrobe. He examined the assortment of weapons encased in the base, chose an Italian weapon, slapped in a clip and screwed on the suppressor found with it.

“I will be back sorella,” he said over his shoulder. “Do not exit this room until I return.”

She said nothing as he departed. He peeked in on his nephew. Thankfully Ignacio slept.

Swift strides without touching the railing took him to the foot of the stairs where he
peered toward the rear of the large home where soldati were on duty. Quietly, he walked in that direction.

He encountered a guard inside the kitchen he knew by name. The unsuspecting man nodded respectfully at the Don. Giuseppe’s reply was a quiet bullet to his throat
, he dropped a sandwich. Each determined gait Giuseppe took was for his sorella. He stepped over the corpse to stroll to the outside patio.

T
he moon was a crescent chandelier above a manicured garden which balanced a child’s swing set and slide. Yard furniture where a couple lounged in happier times to observe a boy at play sat empty; the cushions shiny with evening dew. He found another watcher leaning against the balustrade enjoying a smoke and he received an acupuncture of lead to the rear of his skull.

Giuseppe
focused in the distance on the shadowy figure making his rounds.

Giuseppe waved
him over. He approached, his eyes observed through the stone railings a body before being pelted with piercing metal.

The grass softened the fall unlike the times when they were boys and scraped their knees on asphalt during rough sports.

The execution of soldati came with a sunken heart. Men he had known, sat in backrooms with, shared drinks and laughter at family gatherings were eliminated for security purposes. He did this horrible deed because he could not risk the Peglesi’s waging a bloody vendetta. Like a poison spreading throughout the body he was forced to cut off a limb.

Matteo had many relatives; the guard he shot was one of them.

When he
re-entered the tragic abode he fetched a beer from the fridge, guzzled the flavored hops and barley until the can emptied. He closed his eyes, and then they opened in focus. He recalled a time brothers exchanged words,
debating halves and wholes. The entire famiglia’s future was at stake and a Don’s selfishness was put on hold.

Giuseppe had
patronized a megastore during the height of the holiday season, walked the aisle and saw an employee using the buffer on the floor as crowds maneuvered around the cleaner. His first thought was how stupid of the manager not to foresee an impending lawsuit. A Don saw ahead; from Amelda’s action he clearly envisioned a mafia war.

He tapped the intercom and summoned the guards at the gate, requesting they come inside for a brief meeting and to
bring his Capo as well. He tossed the can in the waste bin and went to wait in the center of the staircase. Giuseppe had direct line of sight to the entrance. 

The Capo rushed inside, spotted his Boss and inquired. “Don Dichenzo, what has happened?”

Giuseppe shot him and the guard who entered next. He then squeezed the trigger twice more, dropping the human targets whose bones cracked on the marble, harder than the stare of a Don seeking to protect his own.

For Amelda to murder Matteo, the root was undoubtedly betrayal. The Capo was Matteo’s cousin, many of the men were.
In the grim hours before dawn, Giuseppe focused his sight on his shoes. Not a single speck of blood touched his clothes or hands, yet the contamination clung invisibly to his skin.
There isn’t a word spoken when death covers a crime; only a breath escapes the wrongdoer.

Giuseppe rose wearily to climb the stairs to the
master suite. There remained an unfinished act. The bedroom door was opened with the sleeve of his shirt, and he stepped inside the once marital chamber.

He used the affectionate name from childhood before Amelda had become a wayward teenager and began torturing her brother. “Meldi.”

She raised her head from the corpse, her eyes that of a trusting sibling. He loved his sister and today he saw the same toward her brother. “Si fratello.”

“He is dead sorella, go to
Ignacio. Men have broken into the house and killed your husband and others. But I have driven them away. Our famiglia is safe again.”

In a trance of despair she listened. A blood trail is what she left as she passed. When she had gone, he went to the bed; very carefully he adjusted the body, pulling the beautiful spread up
and used it to yank the knife free. It did not spurt; the blood had seeped out and in. Giuseppe wrapped the knife in the cloth and then moved back to the door. He aimed at the wound and fired. The corpse jerked, another shot opened the area leaving no sign of the penetrating incision.

Giuseppe then
proceeded to alter the evidence, methodically destroying any surveillance footage before cleaning everything he touched and his hands. The gun he used for the crime, the knife and cloth were all destroyed. The polizei would never find the items unless they sought to stick their hands in battery acid mixed with lye. The investigation would confirm his story. There is fear of death if anyone opposed a ruthless mafia’s version of events.

Outdoors he withdrew his weapon and fired loud shots to the trees in a re-enactment of someone defending himself against an ambush of killers. But of course the assassins did not exist, because the killer of loyal men stood gripping the murder weapon in his hand.

A guttural groan reached the sky.

The cursed life of a Giacanti must bleed.
 

***

Tiffany pulled the covers over her legs and curled toward Tony after returning from the bathroom. In the quiet house of his Boss at three in the morning is when she broached the subject.

“Time to let me in Tony. You’ve been silent long enough. I want to know what the hell is going on and I want to know now!” she demanded. He wasn’t asleep. When Tony slept he snored.

He rolled in her direction and they were face-to-face now on a bed softer than her ass. Tony’s chiseled features were visible in the dark and so were the glint of his eyes. He put his arm around his lady, did the Tony sigh that sounded more of a groan than a breath before telling her, “You already know what I do, you’re only seeking confirmation.”

Tiffany’s lashes descended. She couldn’t sleep, not after what happened. Thank goodness his Uncle wasn’t killed or anybody else. She heard his lies to the cops and she hadn’t said a word. When they asked her about the incident she repeated what she heard. But, tonight she wanted to hear from his mouth what the future held. Her sister was falling for Giuseppe Dichenzo and unlike Tony he was deeply entrenched in the mafia world. She worried for her
sister; she really did because this lifestyle wasn’t for everybody. But at least Nicole knew upfront who Giuseppe was and what he did. Here she was with a man she’d been with for years and he was still a mystery.

“I love you and we were supposed to get married, but how can I marry somebody who refuses to talk to me about important things?”

“I’m not hiding anything from you. Your eyes are wide open, what do you see?”

She lay on her back and stared at the ceiling. “A woman between a rock and a hard place that has to make a decision.”

“Then make it and stop waiting for me to give you the answers.” Tony shook his head. “When I told you about my mother you thought you could repair a broken relationship. Your problem is you want to fix people. You can’t solve everybody’s troubles and you can’t expect someone to change when they’ve shown you who they are time and time again.”

She turned her head in his direction. “Is that what you think, I’m trying to change you?”

The masculine beauty of his eyes didn’t hide the anger. “Yes I do. The minute things don’t have the result you want then you analyze me like a student in your dance class.”

Tiffany blinked. His mother had said her son was fucked-up, but Tiffany didn’t see that, what she saw was somebody accustomed to pushing people away. “Then maybe Tony you need to start analyzing why you want to marry me
then?”

A long sigh occurred. He loved Tiffany. He was certain the feeling was mutual, but in light of everything going on at the moment he couldn’t honestly ask her to hang around to dodge bullets. Tiffany was tough, but people aren’t indestructible. His Uncle wailed like a bitch but he noticed Nico’s wife, Tiffany, Nicole and the nurse lady hadn’t panicked. They had something inside that he supposed is what’s needed in crisis –calm. But was Tiffany tough enough to deal with not knowing everything about his work and stay out of trust?

He wanted Tiffany safe. “I want you to go with your sister tomorrow. She said she has to fly to Japan for an engagement. When you get back we’ll talk about whether we’re going to have a wedding or not, okay?”

C
hapter Twenty-One

Selange arrived at the brownstone after Teresa asked if she could pick her up because she didn’t have her car. When Selange arrived she went inside to say hello to the girls but they were out with Teresa’s mom.

“They wanted to get nuggets, so my mom took them out and then they’re going to her house.”

“Oh,” Selange replied as Teresa fussed with her hair. “Don’t let the girls eat too much of that processed chicken. The USDA passed legislation that allows domesticated chicken to be exported to China for processing and then returned to America where it’ll end up in many fast food restaurants and those canned soups.”

“Word?” Teresa was surprised. “I didn’t know that.”

“The consumer often finds out about stuff after bills are passed. Companies and governments operate on a need to know basis. This legislature is more a quid pro quo. China doesn’t allow beef products from America for fear of mad cow disease, so this is what
the U.S. hopes will foster a favorable return. Money is the root of all evil, politics, too.”

“Girl, tell me about it.”

One of the reasons Selange liked Italy was because most Italians utilized locally grown produce. She sighed when Teresa sat down. “I thought you were ready?”

“I’d rather talk here. I don’t know if I feel like going out right now.”

Selange took a seat. She was a tad peeved. She’d consumed water and peanuts in anticipation of eating a gourmet meal at the restaurant on Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard. “All right, I’m here. So what’s going on with you?”

“Everything.”

“Let’s pick a starting point. Teresa why didn’t you tell anybody Domingo beat you?” Teresa’s sad face pulled at Selange’s heart.

“Girl, I don’t know how to explain why I
didn’t after the first time.”

“So, you did tell somebody?”

“I told Alfonzo a while back and he intervened?”

Selange wasn’t aware of this. “Yeah, when?”

“A little before Amelda got married.”

Selange blinked the bad memories of that time away. “So when did he start hitting you again?”

“Sometime later.”

“Teresa, we’re family.
You could have said something and we would never have allowed Domingo to continue with the abuse.”

Teresa felt ashamed that she hadn’t picked up that phone again and called Alfonzo. But, she was afraid Alfonzo would kill Domingo. Embarrassment also played a factor in her decision. There’s humiliation in admitting, Domingo who claimed to love her used force to keep her in line. He had behaved for a while, but then the verbal and physical abuse
began when he started using. What’s difficult to articulate is the blame she assigned to herself for putting up with his shit for so long. She had this warped idea that an alpha male meant a hard-core muchacho oozing testosterone that used intimidation sometimes to get his way, even with his woman. She fooled herself in to thinking Domingo’s over-bearing ways wasn’t controlling, but machismo. Tough chicas were always talking about their alphas.  A thug can be damn sexy. On the streets the bee-bopping hombre’s with tight faces and tighter hearts were bad to the bone. Teresa had been around enough and witnessed dude’s slapping their girls around. Domingo was an alpha, a Boricua thug and only a strong chica could tame his ass and she was the one because she was bad to the core.

So, when Domingo yelled, she got up in his face and yelled back. When he tried to control what she wore, she flipped him the bird and strut her ass right out the door. But, there’s always a tension, never complete peace
in a volatile relationship. There’s always fear creeping across the skin in the presence of a man like Domingo. She didn’t want to piss Domingo off, but something often did. The drugs worsened along with his temper.

T
he thug she loved came home after a bad day.

Yup,
frustration and the inability to cope with stressors made her a punching bag. That backhand slap which sent her in to a wall resulted in a tiny scar on her mouth that she hid with lipstick.

Teresa sighed; she couldn’t explain it to a woman who had a good
man. Alfonzo didn’t treat women like trash. Teresa never heard anybody claim Alfonzo beat on women, even before Selange. Dudes were afraid to fuck with him, even way back in the day and ‘aint nobody accused him of being soft ‘because he treated a woman with respect.

Word, she had lied to herself, been brainwashed by unhealthy relationships and other girls who found nothing wrong with dudes contr
olling their movements and words. There wasn’t anything cute about that shit when Domingo was kicking her ass. She’d been a weak girl masquerading as a woman until she woke the fuck up. That’s when she met Jesús but by then the dysfunctional relationship had gone on so long, she was afraid to leave, she was scared shitless by the dudes Domingo had begun to hang out with. He’d threaten her, tell her he’d have one of his mob friends make her disappear and she believed him.

She looked
sadly at Selange. The people Domingo started doing business with were friends of Amelda’s husband. Domingo had said when they were at the wedding; Matteo had given him a business card and told him to contact him if he ever needed anything.